


Cold Fronts

by TempestRising



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Also a broken iPhone, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscommunication, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: Phil's phone breaks, Dan's pretty sure everything is a metaphor, and they define the parameters of their relationship over sushi and broken chopsticks.Phil wondered where the messages were. His phone had reset itself last night, and he imagined the texts out there, hovering, fog like, over the flat. Like the cold front that had swept in. Like a bad night's sleep. Like the silence that had risen between he and Dan like a wall.





	Cold Fronts

_"We are stuck with technology even when what we really want is stuff that works."_

**Douglas Adams**

.***.

A cold front had settled itself over London and Phil woke up with his hip actually aching, like an old man. Dan, whose joints ached constantly, a side effect of being tall and mostly inert until recently, said, fondly, that they were getting old before their time, a whole life cycle in compression, that they should get a porch now, and some rocking chairs, and complain about the kids these days.

"We already complain about the kids these days," Phil pointed out, pouring them both tea. "Actually, I don't think you do anything but complain about the kids these days."

"Um, no," Dan said, in his mock-offended tone, "I also complain about you, and you're ancient." He took the mug carefully and scooted sideways, letting Phil have half the couch and, more importantly, half the blanket. No amount of space heaters or fireplaces could keep this apartment warm.

Phil buried himself in the comforter, which they'd taken from Dan's bed a couple of days before when the cold seeped in everywhere, all at once, making the floors and silverware and even cupboards near impossible to use. Dan was in Phil's bed, better than a heater or an extra blanket, skin on skin somehow warming from the inside out.

They didn't often sleep together. Dan tended to roam at odd hours and Phil tended to kick, but cold nights brought back old habits, which was the only reason Dan knew, "you were up early today."

"I'm freaking out a little," Phil admitted. He watched Dan scroll through his phone with enviable ease. "My phone's acting up."

"Again?"

"Still." Phil's phone had begun with the phantom touches a couple of days ago but last night, as they were curled back to back under the duvet it had become completely unusable to the point where Phil eventually just put it on his bedside table. He meant to worry about it in the morning but instead he worried about it all night. Nothing worse than something you take for granted suddenly breaking down.

Dan snorted. "Sounds like a metaphor."

"Well, this metaphor is interfering with my life." Phil nudged Dan. "Up for a trip to the Apple store?"

Dan made a face. "Sounds like a one-person job to me."

"We can pick up a mince pie. And sushi. I don't think you've seen the outdoors in a solid week."

"Because it's literally, literally minus fifteen. And windy. We won't even get to the store, we'll just freeze to the concrete. And even worse you're luring me out with bloody sushi because you don't want to wander around the Apple store unattended."

"You need to keep me away from the electronics. It's your job."

Dan was definitely going to relent, he secretly loved playing around in the Apple store, but he was going to complain about it, because that's what he did. "My job in what capacity?"

It was a dare. Lately Dan had been trying to pin down exactly what they were to each other. Mr. "I'm not into labels" making it his New Year's Resolution to change the status quo. Afraid they were getting older but not actually evolving. Or something. Phil was happy with the status quo. He was more of a "if it's not broke don't fix it" kind of guy.

"As my partner in crime," Phil sidestepped smoothly. "Come on, get dressed, there's already going to be a line."

Dan mumbled about a line of sadists that would subject themselves to the extreme weather but for all his grumbling he did get off the couch, leaving behind half a cup of tea, which Phil drank for him.

It was cold, the kind of cold that got in unexpected places, under the fingernails, behind the ears. Dan kept up a running commentary of all the body parts that were suddenly going numb as they got on the tube and across town, Phil promising him mince pies and warmth all day if they could just get this done. Phone burning a useless sort of hole through his pocket.

They got to Covent Garden and Dan melted away to argue with some hapless clerk about Apple discontinuing the X line already. They were the only ones in the store, not even the usual browsers around and a sorry number of staff. "I know, mate. Flu, I think," one of the tech-savvy guys said, shaking Phil's hand. "And the cold. Never felt cold like this in London before."

Phil handed over his phone and stared sort of blankly around while the techie diagnosed the program. "Look, mate, this is what's wrong, right, see, the screen's a little bent up? No good. Not actually sensing what you're doing."

"So I need a new phone," Phil sighed. Dan liked to have the newest everything but Phil got attached easily and, anyway, he felt like he'd just gotten this model.

He and the techie got frustrated together about wiping Phil's old phone. It kept resetting itself, and every time they touched the screen it would hit four or five keys at once. "Mate, you really need a new phone," the techie said. Dan wandered over and then walked away after the third spontaneous reset. "Okay. I think we've got it. Sign here. And this is yours."

The techie handed Phil his new phone and Phil couldn't resist turning it on. "So all of my stuff will transfer? My contacts and everything?"

"Oh, yeah. Usually we could transfer it from phone to phone, but we've just had, like, four resets in a row, mate. You've got a remote backup, right?"

From behind him, Phil heard Dan let out a laugh that he mostly disguised as a cough. "Sorry," Dan said to the techie. "But Phil treats his phone like, I don't know, like it's indestructible. Last I looked it said it hadn't been backed up in sixty-two weeks."

Phil felt his stomach give a little lurch. Dan was right. There were a lot of notifications Phil just ignored, and the back-up reminder was one of them. He'd switched phones before, of course, but he always had a chance to back the old one up. This phone had reset itself before Phil had a chance.

The techie winced at the look on Phil's face. "That's a tough one, mate. Look, you'll get your contacts back, and any notes that you've saved to your email and whatnot. And most everyone lives their lives on apps, anyway. The only thing you're going to lose is all your old messages."

Phil stared down at the phone in his hand. "Are you sure?"

"That you'll get your contacts back? Yeah, mate. Or that you lost your messages? That's one that some people get mad about. Like, I seen this lady, right, she just breaks down on me. Starts hitting me chest. Sobbing like she's on tv. Says that those messages have to be somewhere."

"Well," Phil said, "they do, don't they?'

The techie shrugged. Put his hands together and let his fingers fly apart. "If you don't have a backup? They're dust in the wind, mate. Dust in the fucking wind."

Phil's stomach twisted into tighter and tighter knots and he blinked, suddenly. Filled out the paperwork. Got his new phone and shook the techie's hand, who was giving Dan a too-appraising look. This day was going from bad to worse.

They got sushi a few doors down, the short walk turning their cheeks raw and red. "Go on," Phil said when they sat down, Dan ripping open the chopsticks with his teeth. This place was empty, too. The whole world seemed very empty. "Say it."

Dan spit the paper out. "Nothing worse than something you take for granted suddenly breaking down."

"Cheers," Phil said, glumly. He resisted the urge to fiddle with the new phone. It felt strange to have lost everything. To have to re-download music and apps. To have so many blank screens.

"Why are you so upset? It's an opportunity to start over. Curate your apps. Cull the extras. Delete contacts."

"You're getting way too into this Zen minimalism thing," Phil said.

"Says the hoarder."

"I just like things the way I like them." Phil tried to pull apart his chopsticks and the right one broke in half, splintering hard into his palm. Today was not his day.

Dan shrugged. "I think this is proof that just because things worked out before doesn't mean they're going to keep working out. Change your ways. Back up your fucking phone once in a while."

Phil looked up. "What are you saying?" He held up a hand. Repeated, incredulously, "Doesn't mean they're going to keep working out?"

"Nothing. Phil, I'm just talking about the phone now."

"You're not. Everything's a metaphor for you." Phil gestured to the empty restaurant, the cashier chatting lazily with the cook in Japanese. No chance of being overheard. "Are you -" Phil didn't know how to finish that sentence. Are you thinking of leaving me? Are you unhappy? How much, exactly, did Dan want to change in 2018?

Dan cut his eyes up. A girl brought them drinks and rice, and Dan smiled, and the moment was gone. "Why are you so upset about the phone?" Dan asked.

"It's upsetting. I don't know."

"This isn't you, Phil. I'm supposed to be the one on the ledge and you're supposed to talk me down. Roles don't work well in reverse. Obviously."

"I had all of our texts." Phil didn't know that he was going to say that until he said it. "All the texts you've ever sent me in the past - I don't know. Two years? Three? I read them, sometimes. They're fun. They're funny. I can hear your voice when I read them." He felt embarrassed by the way Dan was looking at him, a sort of sad fondness. "Sort of our...our love letters. And I lost them."

Dan sort of laughed, which wasn't the reaction Phil was expecting. "You kept two years worth of texts? Phil. I delete them every week."

Phil whipped his head up. "What?"

"Oh yeah. Every Friday. I go through and delete all of my conversations from the week. Zen minimalist, remember?" Dan rolled his eyes. "Of course you kept them. Weirdo."

"It's not weird," Phil felt his voice climbing high. "They - you really just deleted them?" For two people who lived together, he and Dan texted each other a lot. _I'll be home soon. Grab milk. Pick me up chocolate!_ But also: long conversations about their friends when they were sitting in the same room, sarcastic inside jokes, songs, philosophical discussions about the nature of shipping. When they were away from each other Phil would find himself scrolling back in time, every message like a tip of the scales from friendship towards something deeper. _Where are you? Come home. I miss you. I miss you. I love you._

And Dan just deleted them? Every week? Phil's messages being lumped in with everyone else's. Phil being lumped in with everyone else.

Dan's face turned hard when Phil tried to say all of this aloud. "I thought that's what you wanted. Me treating you like just another friend."

"That's not what I want and you know it." Phil hated when Dan was like this, petty, deliberately misunderstanding. "I just don't think that this," he gestured between them with the broken chopstick, "I don't think it needs to change just because the calendar moved up one year."

The sushi came then, and Dan turned to his phone, and Phil bent over his. The messages app was completely empty. Phil stared, as if willing the texts back into existence could make it so.

He wondered where they were. His phone had reset itself last night, and he imagined the texts out there, hovering, fog like, over the flat. Like the cold front that had swept in. Like a bad night's sleep. Like the silence that had risen between he and Dan like a wall.

"You're not actually mad at me," Dan said when they were walking back into the frigid January air. "You're mad at yourself for not backing up your phone."

"No, I'm actually mad at you." Even opening his mouth to talk seemed to invite in the cold. "I can't believe you'd just delete all those conversations. It's like - like erasing our friendship."

"Friendship," Dan snorted.

Phil couldn't keep going in circles. "Yes, friendship. If we're not going to be friends first what's the point of being anything else?"

They were at the bottom of Covent Garden's long, long escalator. One busker. The wind down here, too, an icy breath. Dan wrapped his long fingers around Phil's fingers and Phil pulled away. "Your hands are cold," Phil complained.

Dan stuffed his hands in his pockets and they didn't speak for the entire length of the ride and walk back to their flat. They didn't even pick up a mince pie. Phil went to put on the kettle and Dan went into the room with the computer and shut the door with a resounding sort of bang.

Great. Lovely. Phil hated these sorts of fights, the ones that were just sniping until they couldn't stand each other any longer, then moving to different corners to lick their wounds, then coming back together as if nothing had happened. He never knew when the coming back together thing was going to happen. Best to just sit in one place and let Dan come to him.

So he got on the couch, under Dan's duvet which still smelled an awful lot like him and he breathed in deep and burrowed and sipped his tea and re-downloaded his life.

A stack of papers dropped on the coffee table. Dan was already retreating to the kitchen. Came back with his own cup of tea. "Read them," Dan dared, curling into a chair across from Phil, watching him warily.

Phil blinked at the stack of papers. Were they - messages? He sat upright so quickly he would have sloshed his tea everywhere if it had still been full. He put the new phone and mug somewhere they could not be mixed and picked up the first paper.

"Dan..."

"I'm sorry I deleted all of your texts," Dan said. "I never saved them anywhere. I didn't even think to. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I knew that you were saving them, and that was enough. But I've got these. Several places actually. Backed up to, like, every hard drive I own."

Phil looked at the second page. It was their first ever Skype conversation. When they still didn't know each other. When Dan was a fan. When Phil was very young. When they were both very young.

The pages - there were so many - a hundred, at least, double-sided, message after message. "It's everything you wrote me that first year," Dan said before Phil could investigate for himself. "Every YouTube comment, every Skype and Facebook message. Everything. I used to look at them all the time. When I wasn't writing you that year? I was reading these over and over. I'm not the same person that sent these messages. Thank god. But I'm sort of proud of 18-year-old me, for talking to you."

"You're the same," Phil said. "You're a distilled version of this Dan. But I can still read these and hear you."

"Did you keep these?" Dan asked. Gently. Not part of the fight, then.

"No," Phil admitted.

"When you're away, I read these again. You said our texts were, what? Love letters? This is the love origin story." Dan grinned. A story-telling grin. "Boom. I win."

"You're not supposed to win, Dan, this is a relationship."

Dan beamed. "So you admit it."

"Course I admit it." Phil was on page three. "Friendships are relationships."

"Damnit, Phil."

"I'm still upset about the texts."

Dan shrugged. "We'll just have to text some more. We've got time." He took out his phone and typed. "In fact..."

Phil glanced at the notification on his phone. Squinted, reading upside down. "'I hate you,'" Phil read out loud.

"I mean every word."

"I hate you, too." Phil lifted the other end of the duvet, and Dan climbed inside, curling himself into Phil's side, and Phil felt truly warm for the first time in hours. Dan handed him the next page off the stack. Started reading out loud, trying out different voices for Baby Dan and Baby Phil. Some of the messages were sweet, or shy, or funny. Baby Dan and Baby Phil talked about being lonely. About school. About maybe one day, if they were very lucky, moving to Manchester, and living in a flat all their own, and having, they assured each other, a kind of wonderful life.

**Author's Note:**

> For my little sister. Sorry my phone deleted all of our texts from the past two years. They meant a lot. Thanks for texting me all week to make up for it.


End file.
